


When We Are Touched

by thegraeyone



Series: Star Trek AU [4]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Star Trek Fusion, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Vulcan Biology, Vulcan Bond, Vulcan Culture, intimate vulcan finger touches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-02-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:47:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22919446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegraeyone/pseuds/thegraeyone
Summary: In the afterglow of physical entanglement, Science Officer Kaiba explains what it means to be touched.[Part of my Star Trek AU, in which the five year mission into the final frontier... takes a little break as Joey and Seto attempt intimacy.]
Relationships: Jounouchi Katsuya | Joey Wheeler/Kaiba Seto
Series: Star Trek AU [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1579024
Comments: 13
Kudos: 49





	When We Are Touched

**Author's Note:**

> I meant to build up the relationship here a little more before jumping in straight to sex, but all the things I've been fiddling with are just not coming together, and sometimes you need something short and tooth-rottingly sweet.
> 
> Once again, my familiarity with Trek canon comes from Original Series, and while I've done countless hours of research mining fanlore.org, the Memory Alpha wiki, and other people's fanfictions, I'm gonna land on my own ideas of what's going on with Vulcans, which of course centers around intimate hand touches (listen! I'm weak!). This is mostly my own thoughts on the subject, wrapped up in a nice little KaiJou package.

Seto’s eyes were closed as Joey’s fingers traced lazy patterns across his bare chest. He let his breathing and pounding heart slow. They were laying side by side in Seto’s own bed, both in the hazy come down from their orgasms. Sex was a new development in their relationship, one still filled with the enthusiasm and trepidation of exploring a new landscape. Before this, Seto had only engaged in sex to fulfill a biological imperative, without mixing in any emotion. It was maybe why, with Joey’s hand leaving goosebumps across his skin, he felt so strange. Overstimulated, he thought, and he carefully curled his own hand around Joey’s wrist, pausing him in his ministrations.

“You okay?” Joey asked from somewhere above him. Seto opened his eyes, and his vision was filled with Joey’s face, and the concern that tempered his warm smile, and his brown eyes that were always so bright, and the way his blond hair curled to frame his face. The tenderness that beamed down on Seto was amplified by the pulse he felt beneath his fingertips, pounding affection and warmth into Seto’s bloodstream.

“I am,” he said, closing his eyes again, “overwhelmed.”

He released his wrist, and Joey resettled beside him, attempting to keep their skin from touching despite how little space the bed offered. His body heat still radiated against Seto’s skin, and he turned on his side to embrace it.

“I don’t have to touch you,” Joey said, a tremor of disappointment in his voice. He liked touching Seto so much and so rarely got to do it. Even if they didn’t have to contend with his Vulcan upbringing or the memories of hands against his skin, they had to be above board on deck. It made moments like these scarce, precious, and Seto hated to deny him that.

He risked opening his eyes again. Joey’s expression was still worried, but his energy was quiet. Seto held his palm, rubbing his thumb along the raised ridges. He still felt the thrum of his endearment, less intense with the post-sex high fading.

“Do you know why Vulcans avoid hand contact?” he asked.

“I just assumed--you know.” Joey offered a grin to accompany his implication.

Seto huffed out a laugh. “Despite what Taylor’s paperbacks say, it has little to do with sex. When we use our telepathy, we touch the subject we’re communicating with.”

He traced his fingers down Joey’s wrist. A new flood of desire welled up beneath his skin. The feeling was immensely satisfying.

“I find it difficult,” he continued, “when sharing contact, not to pick up on feelings or stray thoughts.”

“You’re reading my mind?” Joey asked, and his hand slipped away. His aversion to sharing thoughts remained constant. Seto trusted few with his own mind, knowing too well how something like a mind meld could be used against someone. It was useful and common for intercourse, but he’d avoided it entirely for both their sakes.

“It’s mostly emotion,” he promised, laying his palm flat. “We’re very careful with each other. It’s an intrusion, to read someone without their permission. A single touch can open up someone’s thoughts to you, whether you mean to or not.”

Joey considered this, and the long digits that were outstretched to him. Seto’s body was cooling. He turned the heat down in his cabin when Joey visited, and the millimeters between them were too wide to stave off any cold.

“When you touch me,” he said, “I feel… warmth. I feel how much you care for me. How much you crave being closer. You overwhelm me with how much you feel, all directed at me. And in moments like these, I feel it both physically and emotionally. Sometimes, it’s too much.”

“And now?” Joey asked, still looking down at his outstretched hand.

Seto smiled. “I would like you to touch me.”

Joey’s hand folded over his, digits curling against Seto’s palm, and he closed the space between them as his other arm looped tight across his shoulders. Seto didn’t protest the embrace. He drew his hand across Joey’s strong arms, and flitted along his collar bone, brushing the scars at his chest before finding more him to explore. Underneath his wandering, Joey squirmed, and shuddered, and laughed. Seto didn’t know any other way to say he enjoyed touching Joey, that even a slight grazing of his fingers poured warmth straight into his cold blooded heart. It was always overwhelming, but it was also difficult to be without. The emotion that pooled between them was too difficult to comprehend, too numerous to feel all at once, too difficult to contain. His own language left gaps in how to describe it, but the Terran tongue felt to casual in its condensing of the feeling. Seto wasn’t sure if Joey could feel it the same way, radiating out from his fingertips, but it reflected in Joey’s smile, in the bright shine of his eyes, in the way he kissed him again and again.

And as they drifted off to sleep, their fingers curled together, it didn’t matter much if the words were not enough. For now, they did not need them.

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts on Seto's name, for the potentially confused (myself included, listen I haven't hammered this stuff out yet, but I know what I _feel_ ): Seto Kaiba doesn't fit any real Vulcan naming convention besides Kaiba being five letters long, but as a story device it works well, as it usually does in KaiJouville. In this continuity, Seto was born on Earth before being picked up and taken to Vulcan, where he was given the (in this continuity) Vulcan name Kaiba. Thus the name Seto is something deeply intimate and probably (up to this point) only shared with his sister as a memory of the Before Times. Which is to say, I could write a ten thousand word essay on my usage of Seto v Kaiba in fanfiction, but generally when I am doing something intimate like this I go with the former.
> 
> (I've thought a lot about names for this entire fic, but I'll save that footnote for when we hang out with more of the crew, who may end up with their side adventures, who knows, I have a lot of notes written down.)
> 
> So, yes, I've spent some time researching Vulcans and Vulcan biology (and by "researching" I mean "reading Star Trek fanfiction") and I have some Feelings on that, obviously. And the point of telepathic contact being the fingertips made perfect sense for why Vulcans themselves are very restrained about touching and gave a good excuse to get into what that kind of touch would mean for these two characters here. Both Seto and Joey have "are you attempting to know me" vibes and the need for any sharing to come of their own volition.
> 
> Small intimate touches showcasing a built trust and understand, as well as a willingness to open up emotionally? God, no wonder Vulcans are my whole jam.


End file.
